


O stay and hear, your true love's coming

by psychomachia



Category: The Haunting of Hill House - Shirley Jackson
Genre: Dubious Consent, F/F, Ghost Sex, Other, Possessive Behavior, Post-Canon, Sex with a Haunted House, Vaginal Fingering
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-13
Updated: 2020-03-13
Packaged: 2021-03-01 02:01:05
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,269
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23127445
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/psychomachia/pseuds/psychomachia
Summary: Theo returns to Hill House. Eleanor's been waiting.
Relationships: Hill House/Theodora/Eleanor "Nell" Vance
Comments: 3
Kudos: 19
Collections: Teratophilia Trade 2020





	O stay and hear, your true love's coming

**Author's Note:**

  * For [infernal](https://archiveofourown.org/users/infernal/gifts).



“Nell?” Theo says, and the door opens wide at the slightest touch. She doesn't have a key to Hill House, but she doesn't need one. Not when you're expected. 

It is just her now, no companions. Luke has drowned himself in vineyards across France, sending postcards that say nothing but are stained with wine. In the right light, sometimes, it looks like blood. Of the Montagues, she has heard nothing, and she never will. 

And Nell...

She walks through the house, quiet as a tomb, and it's Nell's tomb, even if her bones, her body are laid buried in cold earth miles away in a small and lonely plot. But her spirit, that driting pale thing, that Theo knows roams these halls, walks the floors and reaches out across the distance to call in her dreams, to ask her to come home until Miriam wakes her and tells her, oh, Theo, you've been crying. Nell! Nell! 

She can never remember those dreams. 

“Nell?” Theo asks, and there is no answer. There is no message on the walls, no chill in the air, not even a phantom wisp to draw her attention or a laugh to draw her away. 

Perhaps she is mad at her. They fought so often. She was so terrible to poor Nell, blamed her for everything when it was so much more than just her. Sweet sad Nell, who just wanted to be loved, to have a family, to have someone to hold her hand and tell her everything was all right. 

It is already dark. “No one will be around to help me,” Theo says out loud and giggles a little, before it fades and memories take over again. The Dudleys are gone now, buried in their own graves. Hill House always wins, she thinks. Everyone dies and it will continue on. 

The lights will not come on. She has a lantern that flickers against the shadowy walls, but why? She doesn't need it. Not here. 

Theo closes her eyes, follows where she thinks she should go. Where would Nell want you to be? Step here, turn there. Not that door, the next one. Open it.

The blue room. She doesn't need to see it to know that's where she is. Theo takes off her shoes, her coat, keeps removing clothing until she's in a slip, shivering and climbing underneath blankets. It's cold here. So cold. 

“Nell?” Theo whispers, and the lantern goes out. Someone laughs next to her. It's a girl, delighted in herself, giggling because her friend is here, to share secrets with her and lie next to her and play a merry little game. 

The blanket slides back and Theo inhales sharply as a hand creeps up her left leg. She starts to close them. No, she thinks. This can't be right. This...

The laughs turn to sobs and the room gets colder. When Theo breathes out, she imagines that it hangs in front of her, a white mist that disappears into the darkness. She shivers, wants to pull the blankets up over her head, wait until morning and leave in the sunlight and...

There's a woman crying. 

Nell's unhappy because of me, she thinks, and she doesn't think beyond that as she spreads her legs open. 

The hand returns to her leg and another one joins it on the right. They are touching her skin, running inquisitively along the muscles. Occasionally, one of them pinches her and when she jolts, Nell giggles. 

“Nell?” Theo laughs, and laughs and laughs, because the fingers tickle her everywhere. They reach under her arms, brush along her sides through the thin silk and make her squirm when they hit particularly sensitive areas. 

They reach her breasts and Nell, so much braver in death than in life, strokes against her nipples, plays with them, hard from the cold and from the fingers that circle them gently, tweak them unmercifully until Theo is panting. . 

She lets her arms drop down by her side, entangles them in sheets that need no help from her to bind them, to stretch them out further until she is taut against the bed. 

Theo is dimly aware of the same happening to her ankles, but the fingers go away, and she feels chilling puffs of air on her breasts. Her slip ripples and she feels it slide up against her until it can no more.

There is a pause that she can feel, something hanging in the air. Nell is watching her. 

Then the slip gives way, ripping down her front so easily to leave her bare. There are cool hands at her hips and it is nothing to them to remove the equally flimsy bit of silk there and toss it aside. 

Theo is naked in the dark, shaking and gasping. She cannot leave now if she wanted to. 

Does she? No, she thinks. It's Nell. I came here for her. 

Nell has stopped laughing.

“Nell?” Theo barely gets out, and there is a finger inside her, something that touches there and Theo cries out one wordless long sob as it explores inside her, soaks up the warmth and she can't be wet from it, it's so very very cold, but she is. 

It is joined by a second, then a third. They rub against the walls, go deep, looking for places that make her moan, make her flush red and arch her back. 

Another hand goes to her mouth and she flicks her tongue out at it, licks it, tastes earth and ash. It is bitter upon her tongue as is the kiss that follows when it leaves, a long one that goes on until she cannot breathe. It does not stop, and Theo's lungs, trying to find any air, are only met with a chill that freezes them. 

Only when she feels her head swimming and a darkness that is not from the room closing in on her does the mouth pull away and Theo is gulping in air, trying to steady herself. 

The hand brushes along her hair, stays there, stroking it, soothing Theo until she catches her breath. She closes her eyes, lets the hand gently run through her hair over and over. 

Nell giggles. 

The fingers inside her are more purposeful now, having found the spot that makes her writhe against the sheets that drop away from her arms, letting her arms come down so her hands can grip them tightly. 

It's pleasant now in the room, Theo dimly thinks. How silly of me to think it was so cold? It just needed some time. Now it's so welcoming, so warm. 

They were so wrong. Nell had it right all along, to stay in Hill House. She was so lonely and now she must be so happy. She has a family. She has a home. 

She has love. 

But she needs more. She needs Theo. 

And Theo... needs Nell. Loves her. Wants her to be happy. 

There are more fingers inside Theo, on top of her, hands that touch everywhere until there is no inch of her that is not surrounded, enfolded in an embrace that will never end, will always promise her love and forgiveness and someone that she lost, but can now be hers again. 

They can be together forever. 

Theo knows she is moaning now, a long continuous cry that seems to be drowned out by louder voices, laughs and wails and something calling around her, asking her to stay, to be with her, to...

Come home, Theo. 

Come home. 

“Nell!” Theo screams, as she comes...

...and a hand slips into her own.


End file.
